This blog, while primarily a source for educational resources as well as personal anecdotes on the topic of education also contains discussion of serious mental health topics and my experiences with them. There is nothing I would consider graphic or inappropriate.
I have no shame in sharing these things with the world, but I recognize there is a stigma.
It would probably be safer and more comfortable for people not to have to consider the struggles that regular people face on a daily basis but I believe it is important for those of us, teachers, parents, students or any people of any profession, be open about their struggles if they feel safe to do so because it is only through learning that we can begin to change the stigma that is held in our society.
I am an educator, I function well in my role, and I have mental illness.
For our EdTech inquiry we decided to take a closer look at google classroom and create some resources and insight into the best ways to use it for remote learning because in this new normal, even with the vaccine, remote learning will probably become more common.
Support systems are so important but often you can’t find the right people in person so social media can really help.
There are so many great creators, some are those suffering from mental health issues and others are therapists. Some are both. I have created a compilation of some of my favourites from Instagram. These are of course most relatable to my own issues.
TikTok also has some amazing creators, including myself, though I’m less familiar with particular creators, I just let the algorithm do it’s think, try and you will find you way.
Humour, visibility and representation are so important. The more common and normal mental health, even the ugly parts, becomes the easier it will be for people to reach out and get help.
Above is obviously not our group or what we were able to do but gives a better idea of what EdTech Camp is intended to be. Facilitators and educators coming together to share ideas and technology.
Unfortunately, I was a little late to the party, but I enjoyed the rooms that I did pop into. It was nice to kind of go unnoticed and contribute where I could. The experience weirdly reminded me of an event that took place at my highschool when I was in the eighth grade where we had facilitators come through and run a bunch of workshops, or the jazz festival that I attended and got to choose the workshops and masterclasses that I attended.
I just think it is a great idea and model for professional development, and while it was great to bring in people from wherever, I hope in a post covid world I can participate in one in person.
I was always an anxious kid who had a lot of trouble making decisions. Uncertainty was always the enemy. I can’t pinpoint when anxiety became more than minor generalized anxiety, or if I’ve had OCD symptoms since I was a child. More and more I think it is the latter.
There are a lot of misconceptions about OCD. Popular media portrays OCD as something quirky akin to perfectionism. Maybe a character likes order a lot, or washes their hands or has to count or tap something a certain number of times and those are certainly symptoms for some people with OCD but not all.
OCD is misunderstood, by the public but also by professionals. It is an anxiety disorder characterized by obsessive intrusive thoughts, and compulsive behaviours. The themes that an OCD sufferer can experience are basically endless but include among others.
Contamination
Health
Suicide
Harm/Violence
Sexual
Relationship
It takes the thing you care about the most and uses it against you.
Something that is brought up a lot in OCD forums are intrusive thoughts. Everybody has intrusive thoughts, you are standing at the top of a cliff and a little voice says “hey, what if you jumped” you hold a knife and think “what if I stabbed my hand.” You don’t want these things, and for most people the thought passes as just that, a weird thought. For someone with OCD sometimes these thoughts get stuck so “hey, what if you jumped” sparks “why would I think that? Am I suicidal? I think I really want to jump. I should leave right now. What would happen if I jumped? Am I going to jump.” Which is the start of the compulsive behaviours: rumination.
That’s another thing that people misunderstand, compulsions often aren’t visible to other people, they happen in our heads or in private.
ruminating
seeking reassurance
checking how our bodies and mind feel in response to a thought/picture/video
distraction
thought blocking
avoidance
All of these things are things that we are doing to reduce anxiety by either avoiding the problem or trying to be completely certain of the answer. And certainty doesn’t exist.
There are of course outwardly visible compulsions for some people as well. The classic organizing and hand washing. Checking way too many times that you REALLY locked the door. No one compulsion is common among all OCD sufferers and you don’t need to look like you have OCD to have it. Even professionals have a hard time getting it. Until an OCD sufferer sees a specialist they may be misdiagnosed and misunderstood which is especially scary for someone whose mind is trying to convince them that they are capable or harming someone else or themselves. For this reason many OCD sufferers suffer in silence too afraid to reach out for help because what if it isn’t OCD, what if it is true? OCD wants you to believe you are the bad thing.
What if? That is what it boils down to. Probability doesn’t mean anything to OCD if the what if is part of your theme, yeah you probably aren’t going to jump but what if you did? What if you want to?
The answer that we have to get used to giving OCD is So what? If we accept that yes, the thing is possible, we begin to take away the power. It is a part of Exposure Response Prevention which is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy which is the only clinically proven therapy for OCD.
You expose yourself to your fear, real or imaginary, and stay with it until anxiety reduces without the use of compulsive coping behaviours. And it SUCKS. It goes against everything your mind is telling you. It feels like you are in danger, until it doesn’t and things can start to get a little better.
Recovery for OCD unfortunately doesn’t look like the elimination of the thoughts, they probably will always be there. It is the reduction of the fear and the behaviours and the ability to do the things that align with your values despite your brain trying to make you question whether those are even your values. And new themes can pop up, just because you get one under control doesn’t mean a new one won’t appear, and you’ll have to do the work again. Or you’ll experience a backdoor spike. A therapist tells you, yes, you probably have OCD and you start worrying what if I tricked him into thinking that?
For me, my recovery journey includes being an educator despite my brain trying to convince me I shoudn’t, but here I am, almost four years after my OCD really spiked or started and tried to ruin my life and if you told that version of me that I would be pushing through it. She would have told you it was impossible.
It’s still hard, but it’s so much better.
Below is a song I wrote this year shortly after beginning therapy for OCD.
I really appreciated Rich coming to talk with us, this may have been the most engaging class of the term.
So why engage kids with learning code?
understand technology better
help develop problem solving and computational skills
interactive, help math and logic come alive
can be fun, can be tied into existing interests
many activities online
We explored beginner coding on a code.org, below is me exploring the site a bit. I think this is a great tool if you have the technology in class and students can continue to do it at home if they get into it. Scratch is another tool that looks promising but I haven’t gotten a chance to really look at it. It is however the same simple block coding.
Seasonal affective disorder used to be considered separate from major depressive disorder, but it no longer is. It all just comes down to timing. You either have MDD with or without a seasonal pattern. Symptoms of depression include:
fatigue
hopelessness
guilt
lack of motivation
lack of interest in things you used to love
isolating yourself
unintentional weight gain or loss
craving carbs and sugar
mood swings
forgetfulness
thoughts about suicide or self harm
If you are experiencing these symptoms and feel you may have MDD reach out to a therapist if you can, CBT, mindfulness, behavioural activation and medication can work wonders.
It is most commonly known that seasonal depression, or seasonal affective disorder is caused by the shorter days in fall and winter, however, it is also strongly influenced by your serotonin and melatonin levels and linked to your circadian rhythm, meaning it is very linked to our sleeping patterns.
Since I was probably about 14, I have experienced depressive episodes, and they have gotten longer the older I get. For the most part, the worst of it is seasonal. It hits me the worst in January and February, but October and November can be pretty bad too. Now I’m not saying that the rest of the year is fine, I can have a depressive episode at any time of the year, but it is certainly worse when the weather gets dreary, and then the sun comes out and I feel like I’ve been being overdramatic for the last few months.
The trouble with depressive disorders is that the things that help you get out of them (exercise, eating healthy, taking a shower, having healthy sleeping patterns, reaching out to others) are the things that feel the most impossible and the things that make it worse when you don’t do them.
Below is a song I wrote during the worst of my last depressive episode about a month or two ago. I can remember feeling that way and I probably will again, but for now, I’m doing ok for whatever reason, be it sun or therapy or both, and just trying to appreciate that.
This week we looked at gaming and gamefication in the classroom, particularly we concentrated on Minecraft. I think gaming is a great way to get kids engaged and form a classroom community, be it online or physical games. I’ve attached two gameplay videos, the first is me stumbling through Minecraft for about 30 minutes and the second is a ten minute Prodigy Math Games gameplay video. I think both tools are a great potential option for the classroom, but I definitely need a 12 year old tutor to help me with Minecraft.
Minecraft
Please excuse the watermark, didn’t realize I was using a trial version and didn’t want to start over…
Prodigy Math Games
Gamefication vs Game Based Learning
Gamefication
adding a game element to an existing learning experience
Chantelle Adams was such a great speaker, I appreciate hearing more of the parental perspective as opposed to the educator perspective.
It is frustrating to hear all the issues with access to technology that students are having in our area when the school system is already stacked against them. Though I can’t really say it is a surprise. Unfortunately students that require accommodations are viewed as something to deal with instead of as a student to empower. There are of course always exceptions but at least where I have been that is what I have observed. It is hard to blame teachers sometimes though, class sizes are big and you want to be able to provide your best to everyone.
At least we do have some technology now, 20 years ago it must have been so much harder when there weren’t really laptops and computers were reserved for typing and research in the computer lab.
I found the discussion around engaging with a student’s family interesting. It is so hard to think about recognizing an issue and wanting to help a student, and the parents not being on board or being so overwhelmed that you can’t make progress. It was good to consider that we should start slow and that jumping right into it isn’t usually the way to go. Ideally, no matter where they are coming from they are parents who care about their kid (and if not that is a different issue to deal with).
I also really appreciated all of the links and resources that were provided for us which are now saved to my Google Drive (but I am unsure if I have permission to share that. However, some of the sources that she mentioned which I’m sure is fine to repear are
Inclusion BC
Family Support Institute
Provincial Outreach Programs
The British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society
Ministry of Children & Family Development
And while she said not all of these are ideal, they are somewhere to start.
On a more positive note I think there is a lot of really cool inclusive tech coming out to make the lives of teachers and the students who need it easier, I just hope as awareness and acceptance of neurodivergencies and physical limitations grows, having access won’t be such a struggle.
I’m a master procrastinator, and Tim Urban’s Ted Talk on procrastination is phenomenal, hilarious and at least to me SO RELATABLE.
Tim demonstrates the mind of a master procrastinator so well but if you don’t want to watch it (though I recommend you do) he also outlines it here on is website. Generally he boils it down to our monkey brain and our rational brain, and for those of us that are really good at procrastinating the monkey always wins, until a looming deadline comes and causes panic. He also recognizes, that for many this system WORKS, which makes it so hard to stop. I’ve procrastinated all my life and I got straight As through high school, a 7.0 on my undergrad and am now procrastinating my way through a teaching degree, so where is the motivation to stop procrastinating? Seriously, I don’t see it. Cramming and all-nighters can work when you are panicked and fear failure.
However, Tim also goes into the darker side of procrastination, the fact that when there is no deadline to activate the panic response, big goals that we actually care about just don’t get done. I relate to this as well, I start things and never finish them, or I say I’m going to travel but never get started. Is it ADHD or is it just procrastination, or is it both? I’m not sure.
How To ADHD on YouTube goes into some of the reasons we may give into our monkey brain so easily.
She goes over some ways that you can manage procrastination, but also lists some of the many reasons we do procrasinate.
boredom
anxiety
overwhelm
hyperfocus on something else
fear of success
fear of failure
perfectionism
we don’t care about the task
distraction
hungry/tired
it’s not due yet
So how does she suggest we beat procrastination?
Decide what you need to do
Break it down into steps
Take the next step
If you are still procrastinating, figure out why and fix it
Get back to work
She also published a follow up video for those whose procrastination is more commonly rooted with anxiety.
So while these videos are super interesting and engaging, I also wanted to see what I could find in the world of academic papers about procrastination (and not just because I’m procrastinating doing other work).
In an article in Current Issues in Personality Psychology (2019) Tibbett and Ferrari conducted a survey of people to look into procrastination, procrastinator identity and regret. They found that those who identify as procrastinators are more likely to procrastinate, and those that procrastinate are more likely to report regrets in their past and experience indecision.
Now I’m not sure how to feel about this, because on one hand, maybe I can positive think my way out of procrastinating, I certainly have regrets about past decisions. On the other hand, if I do have ADHD this study doesn’t really address the core issues of that population.
I don’t know how to stop procrastinating, I think that in researching the topic I have found some good strategies, but it will likely be something I always struggle with.
Personally I think I procrastinate because of distraction, things not being due quickly and perfectionism in that when I don’t work on something up until the second it needs to be handed in I feel like I could have done better no matter the outcome, but in the end I still feel that way because I procrastinate…
Aren’t brains fun?
Tibbett, T. P., & Ferrari, J. R. (2019). Return to the origin: what creates a procrastination identity? Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 7(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp.2018.75648
